Hotel toilet paper folding is a common practice performed by hotels worldwide as a way of assuring guests that the bathroom has been cleaned.^[1]

The common fold normally involves creating a triangle or "V" shape out of the first available sheet or square on a toilet paper roll. Commonly, the two corners of that sheet are tucked behind the paper symmetrically, forming a point at the end of the roll. More elaborate folding results in shapes like fans, sailboats, and even flowers.

Toilet paper folding is also known as "toilet paper origami" or "toilegami". The practice has been considered an emblematic example of a meme copied across the world from a hotel to another, until it became common.^[2]

The practice is followed by hotels all over the world, according to Stephen Gill, a British photographer who published a book of pictures of folded hotel toilet paper from various nations.^[3]

Dr. Susan Blackmore, who uses the example of hotel toilet paper folding to illustrate the use of memes, pointed out in the 2006 Darwin Day Lecture before the British Humanist Association that even a remote guesthouse she visited in rural Assam in India folded the first sheet on its rolls of toilet paper.^[2]

Hotel toilet paper folding is such an institution that in the horror movie 1408 it is used as one of the eerie happenings noticed by the main character—after using the toilet paper, he finds it mysteriously has been freshly folded over when no one else had been in the room.^[4]

According to David Feldman, in his "Imponderables" syndicated newspaper column, the practice is meant to assure customers that their hotel room has been cleaned. Feldman reported that he had contacted many of the country's largest innkeeper chains to ask why the toilet paper was folded, and all of them provided the same answer. He quoted James P. McCauley, executive director of the International Association of Holiday Inns:^[1]

Hotels want to give their guests the confidence that the bathroom has been cleaned since the last guest has used the room. To accomplish this, the maid will fold over the last piece of toilet paper to assure that no one has used the toilet paper since the room was cleaned. It is subtle but effective.

Stephen Gill believes the practice is meant to please or impress customers:^[3]

But the neatly made bed, the folded toilet paper—all these things symbolise attention and love. Perhaps such finishing touches are also an attempt to suggest flawlessness or excellence, and so distract you from whatever failings the room may have. They create a moment of stillness.

• Decorative folding
• Toilet paper orientation
• Towel animal